Century
by Heptagon
Summary: Old love doesn't rust. But what about old revenge? Hermione knows how to be patient.


**Note: **My beta found this story unusual of me. I love it a lot, though. I wrote it some time ago, and I'm not sure why I didn't post it earlier. But I'm posting it now, so read and say what you think of it.

**Disclaimer: **Harry Potter is not mine.

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**Century**

It was a small café he was sitting in. Only five more tables were placed around the room, but his also had the privilege of facing a window. Not that he so much liked looking the people hurry past him along the street, but on such a somber Sunday afternoon the tiny town was almost deserted. Everybody was at their homes, sitting by the fire and spending time with their families. They were happy, or at least as happy as people can be in little lonely towns like this one, situated in the middle of nowhere.

He had his home too, a small cottage at the edge of the town, although he didn't think it deserved the title of a 'town'. It was nothing more than a village, or just a couple of houses splattered together. Although it did have its own school, town hall, church and more than one shop and coffee house. But it was not a town because towns weren't this... boring. Yet it wasn't a village either. It was something else.

It was a prison. It was a piece cut off from the rest of the world. It was refuge to those who didn't have anywhere else to go. People like him. And to those who didn't want anything to do with the rest of the world, those who preferred to run away. People like him.

He wouldn't say he was happy here, to be honest – he was completely miserable here. But it wasn't the worst place to be, and yet somehow, it was. It had fresh air, fresh coffee and streets to walk about, each of which his previous location had lacked. It had freedom and space, but it still wasn't what he had hoped it to be.

He had been in Azkaban for more years than he could remember, and even though in the end he had got used to it and lost all hope of ever getting out, he still dreamed about freedom, though he had no faith in his dreams ever coming true. But he had still dreamed about it – about going home, about taking a walk down Diagon Alley, about meeting up with his old friends, and about re-establishing his business and taking care of all his wealth.

He had no money – the Ministry had taken it all; no house – the Manor had been lost in a fire; no friends – they were all either dead or in prison or just living their own lives and forgotten all about him. Diagon Alley had been still the same, but it had been too strange, too alien to him. It wasn't his place – they didn't want him there, and he didn't want to be there either.

And to think that once he had been so proud, so arrogant, so obnoxious. But what the war hadn't taken away, the years in Azkaban had. Sometimes he wondered how he had managed to keep his sanity, for even without the Dementors the place had been beyond horrible. Sometimes he wished he had lost it there.

They had finally released him, but it was too late now. His life was over. Too many years, too much time had passed for things to go back to what they were. The world was different, and he was different.

Still, here in this secluded place he had found peace. Not happiness, not even freedom, but peace. He had accepted his fate, just like he had accepted Azkaban, he had finally given up on it all. On life. On world.

He stayed here because things were so. And he found peace, strange as it was. Of course, his peace was not complete – his past still haunted him, he had dreams of the things that could have been, and nightmares of the things that had been, and he didn't even like it here – but he would rather be in this place than elsewhere.

He sighed deeply, and lowered his glance to the steaming mug of coffee and a slice of blackberry pie in front of him. He could vaguely remember ordering them, and even more vaguely ordering them every time he came here. He would drink and eat now, even though the food had lost its taste just like nothing was what it had been before, but he had to eat to live, and he had to live to... He just had to live. He had managed to survive through the war, and through Azkaban, and taking his own life now seemed way too ironic. He had dreamed of it for so many years that now he simply had to keep on living, even though it was nothing like it had been in his visions, nothing like he had imagined and wished for, and there was nothing life could offer him anymore. He wanted it to end, but he was too proud to end it himself.

His Slytherin pride.

How little meaning these words held now. Here in the desolate Muggle village, long way from any larger community, wizarding or otherwise, things like that simply did not matter. Names like Hogwarts and Slytherin were odd and foreign to the people here.

But in a way, it was a good thing. Because none of those who lived here would know names such as Harry Potter, or those who did, kept quiet about it. So he could rave and rant on and on about the Boy Who Lived without anyone stopping him and starting to praise and worship that former aquaintance of him.

He didn't know where Harry Potter was at the moment, or whether he was alive at all. He knew he had survived the war, and he thought he might have heard something about him marrying the Weasley girl, but that had been years ago, about the time of his own trial and prison sentence, and he hadn't heard of Potter afterwards. Not that he particularly cared, either.

And he didn't speak of him to anyone either, but that might have been simply because he talked to no one much these days. The people here, being strange in that respect, had accepted him the way he was and asked no questions. And if anyone found his name odd, they didn't comment on it.

Indefinite amount of time later he had finished his pie and drink without ever being aware of eating, and he was about to stand and leave when something stopped him.

It wasn't a mysterious feeling or anything like that, but merely another person sitting down in front of him. They had never done it before, and he turned his head sharply, silently cursing the pain that followed.

But whatever ails he was suffering or whatever words had been on his lips, all that was wiped away as he took in the person sitting opposite to him.

It was none other than Hermione Granger, looking just like he had last seen her, perhaps her hair a bit less bushy and her clothes a bit less conservative, and her face less bloody and dirty – for the last time they had met had been in the battle.

But other than that she looked exatly like she had back then, exactly like she had been at eighteen.

And that was simply impossible.

Not to mention that she was supposed to be dead, having fallen at the same battle they had last met. And even if those rumours were false, and she was alive, she still could not look like this anymore. Too many years had passed.

She gave him a small smirk and continued to stare, clearly waiting for his reaction. But she was waiting in vain for he was far too surprised to say a thing.

"Don't look quite so shocked, Draco," she spoked at last, using his given name for the first time ever. "I told you I would find you, even if I had to track you down to the ends of earth. Which I believe is quite a suitable description for this place."

He still didn't say a word, seriously considering the option of having gone insane, seeing hallucinations, or ghosts.

"Are you a ghost?"

She seemed too solid for that, but perhaps this was just his eyesight playing tricks on him.

Hermione shook her head.

"Not quite," she replied. "But that does not matter right now. Oh, it's been long since we last met, isn't it? How many years has it been already?"

The twinkle in her eyes told him she knew exactly how many years it had been, but he was too tired and confused not to humour her with this.

"It's been a hundred years," he spoke sadly, more to himself than her. "Exactly one hundred years."

"Not exactly," she corrected. "You were sentenced to Azkaban for one hundred years and you sat your time. But now you have been free for a while, and the trial didn't take place immediately after the fight. So it's a little more than a century."

"I thought you were dead," he said in the absence of a better comment.

She didn't deny or affirm it, simply turned her gaze away for a second, to the dim and deserted allies outside the window.

"You know why I'm here," she said long moments later.

"No, I don't," he shook his head telling the truth for once.

"I told you I would find you," she insisted. "And you should remember why."

"It's been over a hundred years, Granger. I'm allowed to forget a few details."

"But you're not allowed to forget this!" she sprang to her feet, knocking the chair down in progress.

Looking up at her, he suddenly realized being wrong before. She had changed, a lot. Her curls were darker than usual, bordering on black, and instead of being pulled back into a simple ponytail or just loose, they had been arranged into an intricate hairdo, something she never cared to do before. She donned a long black cloak over a red dress, short, sleeveless and low-cut, and about everything a prudish bookworm would never wear. Her fingernails were too long and the same shade of red, which was slightly disturbing. He realized red was a Gryffindor colour, but this red was different, and not in a good way. Red as blood. Her face was pale, eyes shadowed with black and lips the very same red again.

There was something off about her, other than this gothic appearance. But he couldn't point out exactly what, so instead he went on to read her expression, one of hatred and anger and pain.

_You are not allowed to forget this..._

And then Draco remembered, and agreed – he shouldn't have forgotten this. He had been sentenced to Azkaban for murder of several people, and on the list had been one poor redheaded bloke as well. One who had a girlfriend swearing revenge.

"Revenge? After a hundred years you are still after revenge?" he asked unbelievingly. A small part of his brain suggested that instead of arguing with her right now, he should rather figure out how the hell was she still alive, and why the hell did she look not one day older than at their last meeting. But those thoughts would give him a headache, and that he wasn't overly fond of.

"It has been only a century, Draco," she smiled sadly. "A hundred years is much less time than one might have imagined."

"Good for you to say. You did not have to spend them in Azkaban."

"No. I was not in Azkaban. But I was prisoned nonetheless. Only my sentence is much longer than century. My sentence is forever, Draco."

"So you are dead."

"In a way."

"But not a ghost?" he remembered what she had said before.

"No."

"Vampire?"

The look she gave him this time was one of mainly surprise, and she smiled again, this time wider, showing off both her pretty white teeth and sharp fangs.

"Good guess. I didn't really expect this from you," she said.

He hadn't expected it either. But he didn't tell her that.

"And now I suppose you are after my blood?" he asked instead.

"Eventually yes," she nodded.

"Eventually?"

"I'll see you later, Draco," she said, stepping away from the table. "Don't get yourself killed in the meantime."

---

She was there when he got home. He could vaguely remember something about Vampires not able to enter a house without an invitation, but judging by the fact that she was sitting in his living-room couch, this information clearly proved wrong.

It had been three years since he last met her in that coffee-shop in that little secluded village in the middle of nowhere.

Now he was back in Wizarding London.

He felt too old to lie to himself about the true reasons of leaving that dull village and moving back to civilization and social life. He could say it was because he had finally adjusted to the life outside Azkaban, to the freedom that had first scared him away, that he had overcome his past and wanted to spend the rest of his years in comfort and prosperity, which both had fallen to his lap with the death of his Granduncle's heirless son. He could say all this, but in truth he just wanted to get away from her. It wasn't exactly fear, but this vague soft of reluctance which he couldn't really explain.

But he didn't mind the money, and with it came a social status and respect, even for a Death Eater and murderer. Oh, it was great to see that some part of the world had remained the exact same.

He had heard news, too. News of Potter, for example. Not that it was what he hoped to hear – no, the bastard was still alive and living in peace and prosperity, and by the rumours, happily as well.

Damn Harry Bloody Potter and all his kin.

Because he was not happy. He should have been and he could have been, but there were things that stopped him. Like the fact that he was old. OLD. A hundred and twenty one years was not an age of youth and vigor.

Century. He had spent one century in Azkaban. Right now he wanted nothing as much as to undo it, go back in time somehow and erase those hundred years. He was even ready to fight on the other side, if only he could... be young and arrogant and obnoxious again. If only he could... live.

She was wearing midnight blue robes this time, her hair short and with azure highlights, matching the colour of her nails and eye shadow. She was holding a glass of dark red liquid which could have been wine, but he doubted it.

"Nice place," she greeted him.

"What do you want, Granger?" he croaked.

"You seem to have forgotten your manners in Azkaban," she commented dryly and took a sip of her glass.

"Yes, well, Azkaban does that to a person. Who are you drinking?"

"Your housekeeper. She was kind enough to let me in."

Damn! He had forgotten about the middle-aged lady who took care of most of his domestic matters. Well, not that he particularly cared, but he liked her. She knew exactly when he needed her company, and when he wanted to be alone. And she did her job well.

"I'm glad you're feeling yourself at home."

"No need to get acid with me, Draco. You should be grateful. After all, who do you think got you this house?"

"I inherited it from a relative," he frowned, puzzled.

"You were right, Draco, you know. Malfoy blood is something completely else. He tasted delicious."

"You killed him?" he asked, even thought he already knew she had.

"Not only. First, I made him change his will. Then I killed him."

Change his will. But that meant he had got all this money only thanks to Granger. But why had she done this?

"Why?" he voiced his question. Hints and theories had lost their previous appeal to him, and now he acted as straightforward as he could. Because if he had the choice to learn the answer now or later, now was better, for there might not be a later.

"You missed all this, didn't you?" she said casually, standing up and moving to the window to gaze into the darkness. He saw his own reflection on the glass, but not hers.

"I thought you wanted to torture me."

She turned around and gave him a smile, her sharp fangs on the display. Throwing her head back and gulping down the rest of the dark liquid, she tossed the goblet to the floor, and he heard the crystal smashing into pieces.

"But that is exactly what I'm doing," she said, and crossed the distance between them. Only a moment did she stand before him, and then her soft and demanding lips were on his before he could stop her. It was probably not a good idea, his tired brain whispered to him as he opened his mouth to her, but right now he never wanted her to stop.

Because he hadn't feel that alive for years. For about a century, to be exact.

Oh, he had had a few young bimbos (those that money could buy) after his return to the society, and they had managed to give him some kind of pleasure, even though that sort of things came to an end far too quickly these days.

He blamed it on Azkaban. Of course, he blamed everything bad on Azkaban. And the blame was justified.

A hundred and twenty one years were not too much to a wizard, especially to one with generations of purebloods behind him, but a century in Azkaban was not just a century. It had lasted exactly one hundred years, as his sentence announced, but it had taken more of his life.

In fact, Draco Malfoy was dying. Of course, he had been dying for a long time already, ever since his release, but with each day he could feel death creeping closer and closer to him.

And he did not like it. Because he wanted to live. He wanted those hundred years back. He wanted to be young again.

And a Malfoy should always get what he wants.

Except he didn't. He couldn't buy himself out of the prison before, and now he couldn't buy back the time that had been taken from him.

And with that knowledge he had to spend all the days still left to him, which were not many, but still too long to bear.

Funny how a person could wish for life and death at the same time.

And funny how he could actually have it.

When she backed away he was feeling weak again, and cursed himself, Azkaban, and his fates for that. He didn't want to look feeble – not in front of her, not in front of anyone. His pride, something he thought lost but wasn't, was still there and probably the only thing still keeping him alive.

But when she licked her lips and smiled, and he could see blood on her fangs, he suddenly realized there was something warm on his chin, and the pieces of puzzle clicked into place.

"You bit me?" he stared incredulously at his hand, that now after touching his face was stained with red.

"Don't worry – I didn't turn you," she answered from the window, standing there with her back towards him, and staring into the darkness again.

"And why not?" Draco asked angrily. He was sick and tired of the game she was playing. If she wanted her revenge, she better take it now, before he changed his mind about not defending himself, and have this whole deal over and done with.

"I have my reasons," was the only answer she gave him, and he was less than happy with it. So that when she turned to leave, he grabbed her by the arm and squeezed hard, ignoring his painful and protesting muscles.

"What do you want, Granger?" he hissed at her, looking her right in the eye, but seeing only darkness there. Darkness, void, and death.

"I want you, Draco," she hissed back, baring her sharp teeth again. "You took Ron away from me, and you gave nothing back. You took my life away from me, and you gave nothing back. It's time you gave back what you took from me."

"Even I don't have the power to resurrect people, especially those who have been dead for a century. And when it comes to you, Mudblood, I did not kill you."

The pain in the back of his head, also the one spreading through the rest of his old body, and the change of scenery told Malfoy that she had pushed him down.

"Truth hurts, Mudblood," he sneered from the floor. How stupid of him not to realize that there was still one way he could hurt her, one way he could always hurt her – with his words.

"You're right, Draco," she admitted, something he would have never expected of this new evil vampire Granger. "But not the way you think. I know you can't bring Ron back, nothing can, or else I would have found a way already. And I know you didn't kill me, that was Rodophos Lestrange; he killed himself before his trial."

"Then what do you want, Granger?" he asked again, his voice calm and emotionless now.

"I want you," Hermione announced, and left the room.

---

"I'm dying," he whispered, not having enough strength for anything else. He had been in St. Mungo's for a while, but since there was nothing wrong with him other than his very soon and completely natural death, they couldn't do much for him, and now he was back in his own bed. In his summerhouse in Crete. A change in the atmosphere that was going to help him, they had said. Not to prolong his life, but to make his death a bit more easy.

Heh, he didn't want an easy death. He didn't want any kind of death, actually.

"I know," a voice answered, and he startled because he was supposed to be all alone. His nurse had left him for the night – or more like, he had ordered her away so that he could die in peace.

That, apparently, had been too much to ask.

"Who let you in this time?" he rasped, once he had recognized her.

"You did," she said simply, and sat down on his bed, moving her hand to touch his face gently and play with his hair, her lips curling at his expression of being too weak to shove her away.

"You better make your move fast," he told her. "If you wait too long, there won't be anything of me left anymore."

"I'm sorry," she said in a tone indicating she was not sorry at all, and lied down on the bed besides him, her hands and now also lips caressing his face. He admitted it was a lie to tell that he now wanted to push her away, especially with how alive she once again managed to make him feel.

A sweet tinge ran down his spine as she whispered into his ear, something that he had not experienced for far too long.

"I'm used to playing with my food. But you are much more for me than just dinner, and I should have remembered that."

'Yes, you should have' he wanted to tell her but didn't make it that far since she was on the move again. Her hands slipped from his face to underneath the blanket, and she was swifting her position, climbing on top of him.

"Want me to make it up for you?" she asked seductively. He hadn't remembered when she had lit the candles, or perhaps they had been lit the whole time, but now he realized he was looking straight into her eyes again, into the darkness, but not so much void anymore.

And he had always been fascinated with the dark side.

"Yes," he breathed, raising his own hands to her body, feeling new strength and life course through his veins. He wanted to pull her down into a kiss, but she kept herself back.

"Do you know what I'm asking you? Do you know it's final? You can't take it back once it's done."

"I want it," he said, pulling her towards him.

"You just got free from your prison where they kept you for a century. This is but another sentence, another prison. Only this one is for eternity."

"I want it," he repeated and she let him claim her lips.

Draco Malfoy died that night and was buried shortly afterwards. Few people attended his funeral, but those who did noticed a young lady standing by his grave, her face strangely familiar.

---

"You could give me a hand," Draco whined, heaving himself up and out of the hole.

"You're dirty," she smirked.

"Yes, well, you couldn't just take me away from some nice place, no? I had to go through all this out-of-my-coffin-out-of-my-grave thingy, didn't I? I mean, perhaps you love all this mud and dirt, always having been a filthy mudblood, but I am a pureblood here, and I don't tolerate these things."

"Oh, stop the whining, please. I had forgotten just how annoying you can be."

"Shut it, Granger. I got dirt in my hair. I got dirt everywhere. Everywhere," he pointed out forcefully.

"And I thought you liked getting dirty," she threw him a smile.

He answered to it with a smirk of his own, running his hands through his blond hair shining in the moonlight, and bringing his fingers in front of his face for inspection afterwards.

"Nice," he commented, seeing the pale smooth skin instead of wrinkles.

"Ever done it on a grave?" she questioned, hopping down from the headstone she had been sitting on. His headstone.

Draco shook his head, amused.

"If someone had told me one hundred years ago that I'd be fucking Hermione Granger on my own grave a few days after my death..."

He left the sentence unfinished, not able to think out any suitable ending to it; not that it didn't say enough already.

"Show me your fangs," she pleaded, having reached him, and touching his cheek gently.

"Only if you are a good girl and do everything I want," he grinned evilly, careful not to fulfill her wish.

"I haven't been a good girl for over a century," she smiled back wickedly. "I'm not sure I know how."

"Well, I guess I just have to teach you then," he said, grabbing her by the arm and hurling her to the ground, pleasure flooding through his body for being once again powerful enough to do it.

"I just have to teach you then."

---

Afterwards she was sitting on his gravestone once again. She seemed to like it.

"Now I'm even more dirty," Draco whined dramatically.

She rolled her eyes, but decided to play along, just for the fun of it.

"Oh, don't be mad at me, honey," she pleaded, her tone almost sincere. "I will make it up to you."

"You already did. And it only made things worse. Dirty, filthy, muddy..."

He was really good at whining. But vampires were not supposed to be whiny petulent children. Oh well, she would have time to alienate him from that awful habit... she had all the time in the world, after all.

"Look what I have!" she exclaimed with feigned happiness, lifting her hand and showing him a piece of paper.

"What is it?" he asked, too curious to whine.

"An invitation. To Hermione Longbottom's 100th birthday party."

"Hermione Longbottom?"

"Nee Hermione Potter. Harry's eldest daughter. Named after yours truly."

"You got an invitation to Potter's daughter's birthday?" he asked slowly, a devious plan forming in his mind. He really hated Potter. "Where did you get it?"

"From my grave," she shrugged. "My... that is, our luck that Harry has lost it in his old age – dead and rotten corpses don't go to parties. But we do."

She jumped off the stone, and gave him a wicked smile, letting the moonlight glint off her fangs.

"So, what do you think? Let's pay Potter a visit?"

"What did Scarface do to you to deserve our revenge?"

"He promised me something. He promised to keep _him _alive. He broke that promise, and now he will pay."

Draco smirked. He liked that way of thinking. And he liked the idea of finally having his vengence on Potter, after dreaming of it for over a century.

---

It wasn't love between them; but she had been lonely, and he would keep her company. He would be hers because he owed her that. And they would roam the world together, for all eternity.

Perhaps it was love after all. Love and revenge, life and death. All intertwined together so closely that removing one would destroy them all.

_**The End.**_


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